Scott, I don't do FaceBook (I am as bemused by it and Twitter as Betty White is, as Fred posted above), but I do have a FaceBook account because the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre posts many of their photographs on their FaceBook page. I'll look up Rick Piester on there--thank you for the suggestion! Another funny thing I found was that in the next issue of "Boys' Life" (October 1973), Pedro the Mail Burro referred to the N.R.A. ("National Rocketry Association") in responses to letters from Scouts about the Akela-1 article in the previous issue--are there any N.R.A. members here? :-)

I was just at a rocket launch with Bill Stine and spent a wonderful hour reminiscing about a number of things including the hobby stores we used to ride our bikes to while we were each growing up in Phoenix.

Bill told me he was employed at the first Hobby Bench store (at 17th Ave.) even before it opened and one of his duties was to build many of the rockets that still hang from the ceiling there. He said he couldn't absolutely recall but he was pretty sure he built the Skylab.

Purty! I wonder if he built the Starship Vega as well?

Now that you mention that, I believe I may have been confused. I believe it was Bill Stine and not Rick Piester who built most of the hobby bench models. I may have confused the two famous sons of two legends.

That's perfectly all right, Jeffrey--your error prompted me to contact Rick Piester, who kindly e-mailed me several old Akela-1 photographs and allowed me to share them here on YORF (see the thread "Early Akela-1 photos" here: http://www.oldrocketforum.com/showt...95299#post95299 ). Corresponding with both of them--which I now have--is, for me (to put it in human terms), like having two sons of Zeus and Poseidon drop by to chat over baklava and ambrosia--WOW!

Trivia question (you don't have to be a Cub Scout):

Where does the name Akela come from?

Greg

The Akela camp (the graduation from Cub Scout to Boy Scout). I'm not sure, but I think the name is from a character in Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book."

We have a winner!

Snip from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_Book



As mentioned above, Akela is a wolf and leader of the wolf pack in Kipling's story.

In my son's Cub Scout book (WEBELO), they just say that Akela means "leader".

Greg

They dropped the wolf connection after dens of cub scouts went running about on all fours and taking down deer.

But seriously:

If anyone wants my original Akela 8-pack decal sheet, I'll be happy to send it to you if you make a $10 donation to the NAR.

That's a very nice deal.

Any takers?

Greg